


Lovers Lodge

by Toryb



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Cabin Fic, F/M, Giveaway fic, I hope you like it dear, Jughead was Fostered by the Lodges, Meddling Veronica, Weekend Getaway, sharing a bedroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 12:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15819102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toryb/pseuds/Toryb
Summary: Its Jughead’s birthday and Veronica gifts him and Betty with a retreat/getaway and maybe they’re kind of a new couple and they haven’t slept in the same bed yet. Awkwardness and wild adventures ensue but it all works out in the end.-or-Giveaway fic for winner @juggiebettyy on tumblr! Thank you for following me dear <3





	Lovers Lodge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [juggiebettyy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juggiebettyy/gifts).



> Here is the giveaway fic for @juggiebettyy on tumblr! I hope you enjoy I actually had an amazing time writing this! So much fun. Also thanks for helping me break my sprint goal for this fic, nearly hit 2k words in 30 minutes I was just having such a fun time with this one! And wanted to say thank you to @arsenicpanda for beta-ing for me!

When Veronica Lodge, his best friend since infancy, had gifted Jughead with an all expense paid weekend getaway for him and Betty for his twentieth birthday, he should have expected things to go the way they did. They were picked up by a black limo--a hummer limo of all things!--at the airport. In the back, behind the rolled up window and the secretrive driver, there had been buckets of champagne for them to share. Inside one of them was a little laminated note that read:  _ Enjoy yourselves for me. Xoxo, V.  _ He knew her. He knew the excess she lived in and how she thought no expense was too much when it came to his happiness. He also knew how excited she was for him to finally have a real and proper girlfriend, and one she had helped set him up with no less.

 

Much like with the birthday surprise, her introduction of Betty Cooper had been full of fanfare. She was a friend from college Veronica had invited back home with her. After his father’s incarceration and his mother’s abandonment, the Lodges had offered to foster the son of an old family friend, and he had lived in their grand penthouse from the ages of ten to eighteen. Holidays were a time he felt obligated to come back home. Or rather, a time when Hermione nagged him about how empty things felt at the Christmas dinner table without him around until he agreed to leave the squalor of his New York City studio and spend some time with them.

 

He knew what to expect when visiting the Lodges. Food. Comfort. A sense of familial warmth, or something close to it. At least, he was pretty sure he knew what to expect, until he met the blue eyes of a pretty blonde woman opening the door to his shower just as he pulled off his boxers to step foot into the hot shower. She’d screamed. He’d screamed. At the breakfast table they’d awkwardly avoided eye contact, until Veronica gave a half hearted introduction of her “best friend from college” and her “practically a brother”. It took two of the three weeks of winter holiday for them to actually sit down and have a conversation, only to find they got along better than most. She had a quick wit and a brilliant smile. Without knowing, he’d stumbled right into Veronica’s trap.

 

They didn’t start dating until late May, when she came to spend part of the summer at an internship close by, and he had bravely kissed her under a flickering light at a hotel bar they weren’t legal enough to be at. It had been five months since that night, and with their colleges being states apart, there wasn’t much time for the quick-paced romance that Veronica liked to watch work. And now they were going to be spending a week together during Thanksgiving break in a nice little cabin all to themselves. The Lodge family owned a few of them, but if his speculations were right--and with Veronica they nearly always were--they would be at “Lovers Lodge”, an appropriately named place that had, so the tale goes, been the site of conception for the Lodge Princess. Not that this was something he wanted to think too hard on when he’d be sleeping in the same bed as that.

 

And there it was. The pristine, quaint, and secluded cabin came into view, and he pulled the key from his suitcase. Betty seemed nervous, but offered him a smile anyway.

 

“This’ll be fun. It looks so nice here.”

 

“Yeah. It is. Normally Hermione and Hiram keep this place a secret. So consider us the lucky ones.”

 

Inside, the air smelled like lavender, no doubt the work of a few hidden glade plug-ins that kept this place from reeking like the great outdoors. There was something peaceful about it though. No blaring horns or frustrating screams coming from angry New Yorkers disrupted the tranquility of the moment, and Jughead felt almost relaxed. Maybe Veronica knew what she was talking about when she booked this week-long vacation for him and Betty. It certainly was going to be nice to get time with his girlfriend, uninterrupted by the responsibilities of college-aged adults trying their best and struggling to succeed. He knew she needed it too.

 

If there was one thing he would call Betty--aside from beautiful and amazing and sweet and funny and utterly and wonderfully brilliant--he would call her driven. Without something in her hands or a project under her feet, she often felt overwhelmed by the world. Progress eased a lot of the anxieties that always built up in her heart when she worried too much or thought too hard about the chaos of her life. Much of the reason she avoided going home for holidays was her family. Her father had recently been convicted on two accounts of manslaughter, something neither her mother nor her older brother were taking well. Her sister had left town with her two children and their father and all but ignored any attempted contact, occasionally writing an apologetic message or posting a picture on instagram of the growing twins. Seeing them grow up without her as their aunt hurt Betty, but like with anything that upset her, she smiled through it until the pain started to numb. It broke his heart.

 

So maybe a secluded cabin visit where cell service sucked and all they could do was be enthralled with each other and their new relationship was worth the awkwardness they were no doubt going to encounter for the first couple of nights. Upstairs, they put their bags in their respective drawers next to the one bed in the entire cabin. One. Single. Bed. At least it was a nice size.

 

Ever chivalrous when it came to her, Jughead offered to sleep on the floor, or the couch downstairs. He’d done it once before at Lodge Lodge (the larger companion piece to Lovers Lodge a few acres over, closer to the lake), and it had been surprisingly comfortable. That was, until the air conditioning crapped out and he got his back stuck to the leather. Veronica had laughed until she cried before offering to help. Ripping himself off of a couch like he was some kind of humanoid bandaid was not something he ever wanted to relive, but he would tempt fate if it made his girlfriend a little more comfortable.

 

Thankfully, Betty laughed and shook her head. “No, Juggie, it’s fine. I mean, we were bound to stumble into bed together eventually, right?” She blushed, looking down at her hands. Of course they’d  _ done it _ a few times. Once or twice when they could steal away time to feel each other, but it had never ended with pillow talk in a shared living space before. The thought was frighteningly domestic. Even more frightening when Jughead realized how much he was looking forward to falling asleep with her in his arms.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, we were. I’m excited for the weekend. For time where it’s just us, you know? We’re both so busy with school and everything, it’s hard to make time.”

 

“I know. I’m sorry, that’s mostly my fault.” It looked like she wanted to say more, but instead she stopped and pointed out the window. “It looks beautiful outside, don’t you think? I can put my snow boots on and we can go for a walk?”

 

Jughead nodded, trying to ignore the feeling of worry bubbling in his chest, and pulled his old sherpa jacket off the hook. “Yeah, sounds perfect. There’s a really cute coffee shop about half a mile from here, situated between some of the other cabins if you want to check it out. We can grab dinner. I know there’s food here but first night calls for a feast, right? They’ve got these muffins that I would probably murder a mountain man for.”

 

“Graphic, yet a good sales pitch. Have you ever thought about opening an ad agency after you get out of college?”

 

“And feed into corporate America? Come on now Betty, you know how I feel about that.”

 

She laughed and took his hand in hers before they set out for the little shop. It was quaint and not very busy this time of day. She pointed to an open table, whispering the order she wanted, before going to claim it for them. While waiting in line, he had a moment to think on things with Betty. They were going well. Impossibly well given his track record with girls, but worries lingered in his mind. Whenever he spoke to his friends, they were curious as to why they never visited each other, why she was never here for weekends, and why she never asked him to drive up for sorority events. They’d whispered stupid things in his ear. Another man. Another woman. Fear of commitment. For the most part, he had managed to ignore those thoughts pretty well, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted to ask her about them now when they were boxed in at the lodge with nowhere she could run away to and avoid him.

 

A part of him worried. He worried he had done something wrong already, or maybe worried that she was embarrassed of him. God, he was embarrassed of him. His pants never fit him, and he had stains on his shirt from foods he ate weeks ago. He had been raised in money as a foster, but his dad was a criminal and he didn’t have a cent to his name. Of course, patriarchal criminality was something they could bond over, so perhaps that was a moot point. Maybe it was all just the little annoying voice in his head--the one that sounded a hell of a lot like his ex-freshman year roommate Reggie Mantle, dickbag extraordinaire and campus womanizer.

 

He tried to ignore the little Reggie and picked up their order and joined her at the table. She seemed fascinated by the snow, watching as her breath warmed the glass and snow clung to the outside windowpane. Gently, he reached out to take her cold hand in his.

 

“I brought you your chai pumpkin something something latte. Which, by the way, is not coffee, but instead a sugar snow milkshake.”

 

“Oh shut up, you ass, it’s just a chai latte. Besides, it’s all glorified bean water anyway. Mine is just a little sweet, which is how I like it, thank you very much.”

 

He smirked, tilting his head to the side. “Oh? What is it you like about me then?”

 

“Well, I never said I didn’t like something bittersweet, did I?”

 

Their eyes lingered on each other a little longer than normal, and he felt his heart thunder in his chest. Maybe tonight they could test those unexplored waters and end the night cuddled up naked under the covers, listening to a fresh fire crackle. It sounded possibly hedonistic. 

 

Jughead loved it.

 

After finishing up what could loosely be called dinner, they stumbled home, high off of each other as they fell into a hurried slew of kisses and heavy touches. Jughead would never be able to tell you how it started or how it ended, simply that it just was, and it was beautiful. That night, he curled up around her for warmth. He left sweet little kisses in her hair just to watch her shiver with delight.

 

As the night went on, the very reality of having to sleep next to each other set in. The little Reggie worries crept right back in. He liked to toss and turn in his sleep, what if he ended up backhanding Betty and breaking her nose? Or worse, what if she was someone who hated being touched? Oh God, he’d once ended up teddy bearing Veronica during a glamping trip they’d shared a bed in, and she never let him hear the end of it. In all his wildest dreams, he never would have thought that sharing a bed would be the root cause of one of his signature nighttime anxieties.

 

“How do you...what if we just….okay let me…” Betty wiggled in the bed. They tossed and turned until she settled with her head on his chest. “How’s that?”

 

“Um...a little uncomfortable. I hate sleeping on my back. Can you sleep on your side?”

 

“Oh yeah sure let me just,” the bed creaked louder than it did during their love making, “Oh shit. Wait okay…”

 

Finally, after a few more positions, they settled into something bordering on comfortable, with his arms wrapped around her waist in the middle of the bed. It gave them plenty of room in case anyone decided to flail--please God, don’t let him flail tonight.

 

Jughead lay there for longer than he would have liked to admit, listening to the sound of her breathing until it finally leveled out. His arm felt squished by her dead weight, but he didn’t dare to move and disrupt this moment. It felt peaceful. Even if there was a nasty cramp starting to form in his right shoulder that felt a hell of a lot like he might go numb.

 

Oh there it was. The numbness.

 

In her sleep, Betty whimpered, making him come alive again. She wiggled away from him, but kept their hands tangled together, pulling him along the bed. It was awkward. Uncomfortable. But he was compelled to follow her, just in case she might need him in any sleep related emergency. She settled down more when their legs tangled together, and she breathed a sigh of relief that sounded a lot like his name. That made him smile as the sandman finally came and forced the dark cloud of slumber around him.

 

The next morning, he woke up with drool on his cheeks, horrible bed head, and a jolt of fear about what Betty would think seeing him like this. Then again, their first meeting had involved him being completely naked and almost wet, so this was likely an improvement from that. Or maybe it was a downgrade. He would leave that as yet to be determined for the foreseeable future.

 

It was unfair that she looked like a goddess lying beside him, even in her messy post-sleep state. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she squinted at the sun peaking through the curtains. Betty mumbled something and pulled herself from the covers before slipping her feet into the fuzzy pink slippers by her side of the bed. With a stumble, she made her way to the bathroom. Jughead took that as his cue to freshen up himself. It was, surprisingly, not as strange as he thought it would be to share a bedroom, a bathroom, and join each other for breakfast at the same time without a nosy Veronica wondering what on earth they could possible have been up to--of course she knew, the walls in the Pembrooke were paper thin!

 

Jughead dug in the fridge before pulling out eggs and what looked like slabs of far too expensive, butcher fresh bacon. He offered them up with a grunt. Apparently, neither of them were particularly in the mood for talking, because all Betty did was nod and start the coffee pot. A few minutes and a few cups later, things were back to normal, and she was chatting animatedly over her sizzling bacon about everything under the sun. Even bathed in the flickering yellow light of the dim kitchen lamp, he thought she looked heavenly, angelic features framed by a halo of blonde hair and accentuated with a sweet, sunny smile.

 

They ate breakfast in relative peace sitting across from each other at the breakfast nook. Betty didn’t comment on how much he ate, and Jughead didn’t comment on the way she cut everything into equal sized bites before she felt satisfied enough to bring her fork to her lips. There were things about each other they understood seamlessly. Wordlessly. It was one of the many reasons he cared so much about her. Maybe even loved her. (That last part was a secret though, reserved for his journal--no, Veronica, it’s not a diary--and his own inner musings.)

 

“What did you have planned for today?”

 

Jughead frowned at her question. “I don’t think there was really anything planned. It was more of a ‘please get out of here for a little while looking at you makes me stressed out’ sort of situation. Complete with champagne limo rides to make it look like she was doing something nice for me.”

 

“Maybe she was just doing something nice for you, Jug. Not everything has to be so cynical.”

 

“Realism vs. cynicism. It’s a hard line to walk.”

 

He felt the air shift a little, and the worry set into his stomach again, before the day began to pass as normal as ever. They curled up on the couch and watched movies with low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. A lot of them made him sick, but they found a few laughably terrible gems hidden in there, especially  _ Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, _ which featured a few lines so tasteless they genuinely sent them both into hysterics. Without a doubt this would take its place right beside  _ The Room _ and  _ Birdemic _ for movies to watch when he was having a bad day.

 

Many of their days at the cabin passed like this. It was comfortable for the most part, even if the nighttime sleeping arrangement still left them bamboozled. Still, Jughead could feel something not quite right with Betty. Her smiles didn’t always reach their true height, and she often would stay silent until prompted, fixated on the falling snow outside and gently tracing patterns on the skin of her open palm.

 

Luckily for them, Veronica Lodge must have anticipated a lull in their happiness, and placed an order for three bottles of the most expensive champagne he had ever touched--not seen, there was an entire supply of sickeningly expensive booze in Hiram’s study he didn’t dare put his greasy fingers to, even during his more rebellious years. Jughead sighed and placed the last bottle in the fridge. It was unnecessary. Then again, unnecessary decadence might as well have been his foster sister’s middle name.

 

“What are we going to do with all of this?”

 

Betty shrugged and, for the first time in the last couple of days, actually smiled. “Drink it?”

 

“Oh boy, do I like the way you think.”

 

And so they did. Probably too much of it with not enough bread to soak it up, despite the nice cheese plate that had accompanied it. He had definitely eaten the cheese though. All of it. Especially the creamy brie and crackers. He made a drunken mental note--and a messily typed one in his phone--to ask Veronica where she ordered it from so he could sneak in and “thief the fuck out of all that good cheese”.

 

Betty was relaxed now too, clinging to his hand and laughing over whatever garbage reality show they had managed to stumble into and agree upon.  _ The Real House Horses of St. Peach _ or something. Whatever it was, it was filling their night with some much-needed levity. Jughead held Betty close, tracing along her shoulders as she melted against him, her cheek pressed against his chest so she could listen to the heavy thump of his heart.

 

“Hey Betty. Can I ask you a question?”

 

“Fine, but you get three.”

 

He rolled his eyes. “You’re starting to sound like me. Careful with that one. People might think you like me or something”

 

“Oh we can’t have them thinking that can we? What will it do to my image?”

 

Maybe it was the alcohol’s natural depressive nature talking, or maybe it was his own insecurities, but Jughead nearly pulled back. It was a joke. A scathing joke because they liked to tease each other, it was part of their relationship, but perhaps this one had touched too closely on deep-rooted fears about their relationship. What if she was too embarrassed to be seen with him?

 

“Why do you always cancel plans for me to come visit you at college?”

 

She froze and gave a little groan, peeling herself up from him and scooching back so they could look each other in the eyes. At least, hypothetically, as she was far too transfixed on her fingernails to do much of that. Now the air was thick with worry. It was stifling.

 

“It’s not you Juggie. It’s me.”

 

“Well those are comforting words any guy wants to hear. They’re usually followed with such a happy ending.”

 

“Hush. For a second just hush and let me talk okay? Please?” Betty looked up at him with hopeful eyes, and he nodded, regretting his caustic attitude from before. “It’s not that I’m trying to hide you. I’m sure that’s what you think it is but it’s not. I tell everyone about you and us. I show them pictures and I’ve got the ones from the photobooth at the pier hanging up on my corkboard at home and at my desk at the paper. You’re the screensaver to my phone, so please don’t think it’s you. Because it’s really really not. It’s me and my stupid fears.

 

“You know about what happened with my dad. At least a little. The manslaughter thing. But it’s not just...what happened with him. I guess I’m scared about letting you completely into my life because I think what if something like that happens again. What if someone lies to me and hurts me. He murdered that person, Jug. I don’t believe for a second it was manslaughter and neither does my sister, but the lawyer convinced my mom and a gullible jury into lessening the sentence. But growing up, I never thought he was anything like that. He was my dad and I loved him and trusted him and believed with every part of my heart in him. In the fact that he could love me and take care of me.

 

“It was a lie. It was all a lie. And I don’t want to be lied to again. Not that I think you’ll lie to me, but I’m scared of finding out something like that again and being heartbroken. I’m scared of letting people in and them turning out to be monsters who just want to hurt me. But I think I’m mostly scared because in my heart I know that you’re not one. I know that you’re good and wonderful and kind and I can feel myself falling for you with each passing day and it scares me too because if I love you then you can hurt me.” With a shaky breath, she concluded her story, using the back of her sleeve to wipe the tears away. “So when I say it’s not you, it’s me, I mean it. And I’m sorry, because it can’t be easy to deal with a girlfriend like me.”

 

“Betty…” Jughead reached out and tangled a hand in her hair, leaning down and pressing a sweet kiss to her lips. “I would never want to deal with another girlfriend, alright? You have some issues to work out. So do I. We’re both kind of in a weird limbo while we feel out our relationship. So you take your time figuring out how and when you want me to be brought into those parts of your lives. I’m not picky. I can wait. As long as I’m waiting and know that we’re working on it. So thank you for telling me.” He kissed her hands once with purpose.

 

With a little giggle, she pushed the rest of the tears away and threw her arms around him. “You’re an amazing boyfriend, Jughead Jones. If anyone tells you different they’re dead wrong. Thank you for giving me time, and thank you for inviting me on this amazing vacation. Which, by the way, we’ve still got a few days of, and I plan on making the most of them.”

 

“Don’t thank me, thank Veronica. Profusely. With flowers. Her favorites are roses, but she’s also partial to orchids if you want to really thank her.”

 

She rolled her eyes, pressing another kiss to his lips. “I’m thanking you. Because you didn’t have to bring me. And I’m also thanking you for asking me so we could talk. What I am not thanking you for is sobering me up. Because I for one think we should be having passionate drunk sex on this couch right now.”

 

Well. How could he possibly argue with that?

 

After their week of bliss, the real world called, and they packed up their bags to rejoin their respective campus environments after a Thanksgiving that would be very difficult to forget. Jughead had stuffed himself full of the most decadent diner. The turkey Veronica had brought to them was pretty nice too.

 

“So, I have a question for you.” Betty said gently.

 

“Fine, but you only get three.”

 

“Alright. Then my first and only question is: do you want to come with me to visit my mom during Christmas vacation?”

 

He blinked. Then blinked again. And then he smiled big and wide and kissed her hard. “You know, I think something like that can be arranged. But cohabiting for two weeks? That’s going to be tricky isn’t it.”

 

“Trust me. My mother will make it so that is the furthest things from our minds.”

 

As they parted ways, Jughead was left with a bright hope in his chest. That and one last lingering thought.

 

How the hell was he going to get Veronica something as good as this for her birthday?

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr @tory-b!


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